Animal farming has a profound negative environmental impact. Currently it is estimated that 30% of Earth's land surface is dedicated to animal farming and that livestock account for 20% of total terrestrial animal biomass. Due to this massive scale, animal farming accounts for more than 18% of net greenhouse gas emissions. Animal farming may be the largest human source of water pollution, and animal farming is by far the world's largest threat to biodiversity. It has been estimated that if the world's human population could shift from a meat containing diet to a diet free of animal products, 26% of Earth's land surface would be freed for other uses. Furthermore the shift to a vegetarian diet would massively reduce water and energy consumption.
The consumption of meat has a profound negative impact on human health. The health benefits of a vegetarian diet are well established. If the human population would shift to a more vegetarian diet, there would be a decrease in health care costs.
Hunger is a worldwide problem, yet the world's 4 major commodity crops (soybeans, maize, wheat, and rice) already supply more than 100% of the human population's requirements for calories and protein, including every essential amino acid.
Plant based meat substitutes have largely failed to cause a shift to a vegetarian diet. The current state of the art for meat substitute compositions involves the extrusion of soy/grain mixture, resulting in products which largely fail to replicate the experience of cooking and eating meat. Common limitations of these products are a texture and mouthfeel that are more homogenous than that of equivalent meat products. Furthermore, as the products must largely be sold pre-cooked, with artificial flavors and aromas built in, they fail to replicate aromas, flavors, and other key features associated with cooking meat. As a result, these products appeal mainly to a limited consumer base that is already committed to vegetarianism/veganism, but have failed to appeal to the larger consumer segment accustomed to eating meat.
Food is any substance that is either eaten or drunk by any animal, including humans, for nutrition or pleasure. It is usually of plant or animal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals. The substance is ingested by an organism and assimilated by the organism's cells in an effort to produce energy, maintain life, or stimulate growth.
Food typically has its origin in a photosynthetic organism, typically from plants. Some food is obtained directly from plants; but even animals that are used as food sources are raised by feeding them food derived from plants. Edible fungi and bacteria are used to transform materials from plants or animals into other food products, mushrooms, bread, yogurt and the like.
In most cases, the plant or animal is fractionated into a variety of different portions, depending upon the purpose of the food. Often, certain portions of the plant, such as the seeds or fruits, are more highly prized by humans than others and these are selected for human consumption whilst other less desirable portions, such as the stalks of grasses, are typically used for feeding animals.
Animals are typically butchered into smaller cuts of meat with specific flavor and handling properties before consumption.
While many foods can be eaten raw, many also undergo some form of preparation for reasons of safety, palatability, texture, or flavor. At the simplest level, this may involve washing, cutting, trimming, or adding other foods or ingredients. It may also involve mixing, heating or cooling or fermentation and individual foods may be combined with other food products to achieve the desired mix of properties.
In recent years, attempts have been made to bring scientific rigor to the process of food preparation, under the fields of food science and molecular gastronomy. Food science broadly studies the safety, microbiology, preservation, chemistry, engineering and physics of food preparation, whereas molecular gastronomy focuses on the use of scientific tools such as liquid nitrogen, emulsifying agents such as soy lecithin and gelling agents such as calcium alginates to transform food products into unexpected forms.
However, the raw material is typically an entire organism (plant or animal) or an isolated tissue such as a steak, the fruiting body of a fungus, or the seed of a plant. In some cases, the isolated tissue is modified before food preparation, such as making flour or isolating oils and bulk proteins from seeds.
Despite that fact that all of these items comprise a mixture of proteins, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins and minerals, the physical arrangement of these materials in the original plant or animal determines the use to which the plant or animal tissue will be put. Disclosed herein are improved methods and composition for the production of consumables.